


Because I Needed to Love You

by JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angry John, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Pining!John, Pining!Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-05 09:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4174941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle/pseuds/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock returns from his hiatus, John walks out of the restaurant. But he can't help trying to keep his friends safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Walking out

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This is no longer a WIP! And it went to seven chapters. Oh well.
> 
> This is a WIP, although I have an idea of the basic plot and I'm expecting five chapters total. Not beta'd or Brit-picked (if anyone wants to volunteer, I'll do a happy dance and send you cookies). There will be violence, but not too graphic. I'll update tags as I go. I expect to post a chapter every weekend.

The night Sherlock came back, John looked at him for a long minute before turning and walking away.  
John took in the too-pale skin, the purple circles under Sherlock’s eyes, the way his shirt hung loose across his chest. There were lines carved in Sherlock’s face that had never been there before, and shadows in his eyes. Sherlock, John concluded, had not been eating or sleeping enough. He was haunted by thoughts of what he had done, or maybe what he hadn’t. Sherlock, John knew, had suffered.  
“Good,” was John’s mental response, as he pivoted on his heel and left before his words could betray him.  
Because even if Sherlock had suffered, he was alive. John was glad of that. The thought of Sherlock jumping off the roof of Bart’s, landing in a heap of broken bones and blood in front of John, and John hadn’t a clue that it was coming, that Sherlock was ready to give up? That had been too much to bear. Sherlock’s decision that day had ended John’s life as he knew it as surely as it had ended his own.

John walked out of the restaurant, leaving his date and Sherlock both at the table, neglecting to pay for the wine he had drunk and the meal he had ordered but not eaten. His steps took him to the tube stop without conscious thought; a Sherlock-tinged haze enveloped his mind, filling in all the holes that had been left since Sherlock died. No, since Sherlock left. He boarded a train, then was surprised to find himself coming up the stairs onto the pavement of Baker Street. He hadn’t lived here for two years.  
Sparing a glance at Speedy’s and the windows above -- yes, there were lights on the first floor; Sherlock had been there -- John turned to get back on the tube and make his way back to his flat. 

The thing was, John thought, Sherlock had saved him from death by boredom the day he deduced him and invited him to share a flat, a flat that took 17 steps up to reach, psychosomatic limp and all. Within hours of meeting at 221B Baker Street, Sherlock had disposed of John’s limp and opened up a world of crime and intrigue and life, replete with midnight chases and silly jokes and body parts in the fridge and risk and danger and fun. Over the months they’d lived together, John created a space for himself in Sherlock’s world, a home where he was the sane one, a haven where no one was surprised when they giggled at crime scenes.  
John had loved Sherlock’s world, and loved Sherlock, too, although he hadn’t realized quite how much until Sherlock had killed himself and taken his whole world with him.

John let himself into his flat, smaller and not as conveniently located as Baker Street, but bright and clean and airy. He tossed his keys in the dish on the hall table, hung his coat in the tiny closet, and pulled out his mobile. He should call Mary and apologize for leaving her in a restaurant with a posh git pretending to be a waiter. He hoped she hadn’t got stuck with the bill. He felt bad for walking out, but he couldn’t have stayed one moment longer without doing something he’d regret, and he didn’t feel up to listening to recriminations from another potential girlfriend about Sherlock bloody Holmes getting in the way. Maybe an apology text would suffice. After a drink.  
He settled himself on the sofa, Scotch in hand, and typed out, “So sorry. That was my former flatmate who killed himself two years ago. Or apparently not. I was too shocked to be myself. If you had to cover the bill, let me know and I’ll reimburse you.”  
He sat and sipped his drink, trying to convince himself that this didn’t change anything. He had grieved mightily for his friend, more than most people thought appropriate, if he were honest with himself. But after a few months of wallowing, living in a beige bedsit again and barely making it to the few shifts Sarah gave him, mostly out of pity, he had made a concerted effort to pull himself together. He found full-time work at a neighborhood surgery, and within a year was promoted to be the managing GP. It wasn’t the most exciting work; people who were seriously ill were generally referred to specialists, leaving him and his colleagues with sinus infections and strep throat, diabetes care, and the always fun pelvic and prostate exams. But John found that he was a good doctor, even when not performing trauma surgery in less than ideal conditions, and he cared about his patients and his coworkers. He paid attention to what they said, and to when it looked like they had something they weren’t saying. He never wanted to miss the signs that someone who needed him was becoming desperate again.  
He’d been able to afford the new flat once he was working steadily, and on paper, his life had taken a turn for the better.  
What nobody knew was that after work, John came home to his small, tidy flat, cooked himself a small, simple meal, and drank two Scotches, two fingers each. Some nights he opened his laptop and considered a new blog entry, but he never wrote anything. Some nights he turned on the telly and flipped through the channels once before deciding there was nothing to watch and turning it off. He would go to bed at a respectable hour, plenty of time to get the requisite eight hours, but he would stare at the ceiling for what felt like half the night before falling asleep, only to be disturbed by dreams: Afghanistan, Sherlock, Sherlock in Afghanistan, Harry, his parents, Sherlock.  
He almost never saw any of the circle who had surrounded Sherlock: they were part of Sherlock’s world, not the weak imitation world he lived in now. Lestrade had brought over some of Sherlock’s things a few months ago, including the DVD he had of Sherlock recording birthday greetings for him. When Lestrade left, they’d made vague noises about getting a pint sometime, but John knew neither of them meant it. He’d watched the video once, and felt so bereft when it was over that he’d put it away in a box in the top of his wardrobe with things he kept from his time in the army.  
He never dated, until tonight. Mary was a physician’s assistant who had taken a temp job at the surgery, and had been so bubbly and friendly and determined that John had felt a sense of inevitability when he asked her out for dinner.

His mobile chimed a good 15 minutes after he had texted Mary with a return message: “No worries, John. Are you OK? You looked like you’d seen a ghost. Sherlock explained why you were so upset. He’s very charming, and he said he was very sorry for surprising you and interrupting our dinner. See you Monday?”

So Sherlock was putting on his company manners, John thought, the ones that were never on display when they actually had company. He only used them when he wanted information. He wondered what Mary had told Sherlock about him. She seemed to like Sherlock … that was unusual enough, after an interrupted date. Then again, Sherlock had never apologized before.  
He apologized for the surprise, for the interruption to the date, John realized. Not for making John believe he’d watched the most important person in his life die, leaving for two years and destroying John’s life as he knew it.  
John’s jaw clenched and he drained the glass. “I’m fine,” he texted back. “See you Monday.”

*******

John woke at 6:30, the same time he did when he was working. He wasn't scheduled today; as managing doctor he had instituted a system where everyone took turns for the Saturday hours. When he planned his date with Mary for the Friday before he had a full weekend off, he'd had vague hopes of being busy cooking her breakfast on Saturday morning. Or at least having gotten in late enough to warrant a lie-in.  
Then Sherlock had happened. John groaned at the thought. He'd run away like a frightened child, abandoned the first date he'd had in nearly three years to the tender mercies of Sherlock Holmes. Who apparently had exerted himself to be polite.  
John got up and brewed coffee. He'd switched from tea after starting to work every day again and finding he needed more caffeine. He was swilling the last of it, washing down his last bite of toast and contemplating a round of laundry and shopping when the door buzzer sounded.  
He pressed the intercom, wondering who -- half hoping he knew -- would be showing up at his flat before 8 a.m. on Saturday. “Hello?”  
“John.”  
Just the one word. The only word Sherlock had said last night before John turned and walked away.  
John felt his heart and respiration rates increase. His breakfast was no longer sitting easily in his stomach. He almost felt as if he were panicking, and he resented it.  
"What do you want?" he asked, aiming for a tone of almost polite indifference and landing much closer to extreme irritability.  
"John." Sherlock sounded relieved. "Please let me in. I need to talk to you."  
John raised an eyebrow at the intercom speaker. "Please," and to start the sentence. Not an afterthought. Sherlock had planned his words.  
"But I don't need to talk to you," John said into the intercom. "Or want to, for that matter."  
"John, please. Let me in. Don't make me have this conversation from the doorstep. I'm sorry I interrupted your date last night."  
John nearly choked at that.  
"That's what you're sorry for?" he said. "Maybe you'd better come up."  
John was making a list of all the things he thought Sherlock should be sorry for -- starting with setting up the deception that Mrs. Hudson was hurt to make him leave Bart's, through telling his brother that John could take care of Sherlock's things after he died -- as he pressed the button  
to unlock the outer door and opened the door to the flat.  
Sherlock tromped up the stairs, making no effort to keep the sound of his footsteps from John’s ears. When his head appeared at the landing, his eyes snapped to John’s face.  
“John,” he said, again.  
“Sherlock,” John responded, the slightest nod dipping his chin. “Come in.”  
Sherlock walked in, turning as he removed his coat, his eyes roving over the furnishings and the distinct lack of clutter. He saw the cup with its coffee dregs, the plate with toast crumbs placed neatly in the sink. John watched as Sherlock observed, then stood still as his former flatmate turned to him.  
“Nice place you have here,” Sherlock said, an insincere smile on his lips. “Bit small, though. And it took the cabbie ages to get us here.”  
“Sherlock,” John said again.  
“You’re looking well,” Sherlock tried again. “New jumper?”  
“Sherlock,” John said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t use any form of the word ‘jump’ in front of me, unless it’s coupled with an abject apology. No, wait, not even then.”  
“You’re angry,” Sherlock said.  
“Good deduction,” John said. “Was it me walking out on you and my date that clued you in?”  
“No … yes. But I can explain,” Sherlock said. “I told the woman you were with --”  
“Mary. That’s her name.”  
“Yes, yes. I told her that I had a very good reason for disappearing, and that if you had stayed, I would have been happy to explain. Did she convey that to you?”  
“No, she said I looked like I had seen a ghost, which at first I thought I had, and she asked if I was all right,” John said, taking a seat on the sofa. “And she said you apologized for interrupting our date. Why did you, by the way? Since you obviously know where I live, and probably where I work and where I buy my coffee and have my shirts laundered.”  
“Because you are in danger, John. I had to find you as soon as I could, and Mycroft said --” Sherlock started.  
“Hold on there, Sherlock,” John said. “I’m of no interest to Mycroft. I don’t chase criminals or track down missing state secrets. I’m a GP in a small surgery. I tend to kids who need their jabs and old people who need their medication. I haven’t so much as talked to Mycroft since you …”  
John trailed off.  
“Well, thank God for small mercies,” Sherlock said. “But even if Mycroft hasn’t been inflicting himself on you, he has been keeping an eye on you. You’re the reason I had to jump.”  
At that, John rose, interrupting Sherlock’s pacing.  
“OK, just stop,” he said, standing directly in front of Sherlock. “I don’t know why you left, or where you have been or what you have been doing, but no matter what, I never did anything to make you jump off a building.”  
“No, no, don’t be an idiot,” Sherlock said. “You didn’t make me jump, Moriarty did. But I did it to protect you. Well, you and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. I’ve been dismantling his network so that it would be safe to return.”  
“Maybe I am an idiot,” John said. “But I didn’t want to be protected. I would have gone with you. You just had to say the word.”  
It was Sherlock’s turn to sink onto the sofa, looking up at John.  
“I couldn’t,” he said. “They had to believe I was dead, or they would have killed all of you. You had to look like you were mourning, and you know you’re a very poor liar.”  
John sat at the other end of the sofa, as far as he could from Sherlock. “So then why do you think I’m in danger now?” John asked. “If you weren’t going to return until it was safe?”  
Sherlock looked at his fingers, clasped in front of him.  
“Mycroft received information that Moriarty’s second-in-command, a sniper named Moran, was in London,” Sherlock said. “The information was that this Moran was to attack one of you in hopes that, if I was alive, I would come back. So I came back before an attack could occur to look for Moran. That’s why you need to come back to Baker Street with me. That way, I can protect you, and, if you wish, you can assist with the case.”  
“No, Sherlock,” John said. “I don’t live there anymore. And anyone who thinks I ever meant anything to you knows that’s not true. If it was, you wouldn’t have made me watch you die. I let you become my world, and when you threw yourself away, you took my world with you. I can’t let that happen again. Now leave.”


	2. Mrs. Hudson Weighs In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John continues to insist that he's safer on his own, but he insists on warning Mrs. Hudson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know of you like this!  
> Not beta'd or Britpicked, so tell me if you see any glaring errors. If you volunteer to beta, I'll send you cookies!  
> Thanks to those who commented or left kudos!

Chapter 2  
John's shoulders slumped against the door as he heard Sherlock's steps clatter down the stairs.  
For a few moments, he hadn't been sure if Sherlock would actually leave. If he hadn't, what would John have done then? Call the police?  
For a few moments more, John hadn't been sure he wanted Sherlock to leave. At least while he was here, on the sofa looking up at John as he went to open the door, John knew Sherlock was alive and safe. What was that look that had darted across Sherlock's features when John had told him to go? Disbelief? Fear? The look had not lingered for more than a fraction of a second before Sherlock schooled his face into reasonable impassivity.  
"John, you must understand that our best course of action is to stay together," he had said. "I showed myself in public at the restaurant last night, so by now Moran knows I'm back and knows I've seen you. If you become a target, we can stop Moran."  
"Christ, Sherlock, do you even listen to yourself?" John had responded. "First, you tell me that you had to kill yourself in front of me and leave me for two years to keep me safe. Then you tell me I should come back to Baker Street with you, because our best course of action is to set me up as bait for an assassin so we can catch him. Maybe the safest thing for me would be for the assassin to realize that I no longer want anything to do with you, yeah? So maybe we should be having this conversation on the doorstep where anyone can hear it."  
"But John, I know you. You don't take the cautious approach. You take the risk for the big reward, and getting rid of Moran once and for all would be the safest thing for everyone in the long run. I have a plan, but I need you, John."  
"No, you're wrong, Sherlock," John had said. "You don't know me, not anymore. And you don't need me. You proved that when you left. So make a new plan that doesn't include me wearing a target on my back, or better yet, one that doesn't include me at all."  
John had looked pointedly at the open door until Sherlock rose and stalked past him, not meeting his eyes until he was almost over the threshold. Then he looked John in the face and said, "All right. I won't contact you again. But understand that Mycroft will be watching you, both for your benefit and in hopes of catching Moran. He knows how important you are to me, even if you don't want to be. Please take care."  
John watched until Sherlock reached the bottom of the first flight of stairs before closing the door and leaning back against it.  
Why would Moran think Sherlock cared at all for John? And if he had jumped to save not only John but Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade as well, was he warning them too? Lestrade had the Met behind him; he would be fine. But Mrs. Hudson was an older woman, on her own, with a dodgy hip and a habit of taking her herbal soothers at bedtime. As a doctor, John had no moral objection to the use of marijuana for pain and stress relief, but it might leave Mrs. Hudson less alert than she should be with Moran around.  
After stripping the linens from his bed and adding them to the bag to go to the launderette, John gathered coins and his shopping list from the table and put his keys and phone in his pockets. He hesitated a moment before opening the drawer in his bedside table and tucking the Sig Sauer in the back of his waistband. Then he left the flat, locking the door behind him and not looking back as he slung his laundry bag over his shoulder and trotted down the stairs.  
*****  
Two hours later, he was in the kitchen of 221A, feeling remarkably like a small boy being scolded. Mrs. Hudson set tea and biscuits in front of him with nearly enough force to break the dishes. The lid of the sugar bowl rattled as she put it in front of him and a few grains settled on the surface of the table.  
"Oh, no, you don't take it, do you?" Mrs. Hudson said. "You forget a little thing like that. You forget _lots_ of little things."  
She stood and looked at him for a moment, the anger falling away from her face and leaving a hurt expression behind.  
"I'm not your mother. I've no right to expect it," she continued. "But just one phone call. Just one phone call would have done, after all we went through."  
"I know, and I am sorry," John said. "I just let it slide, Mrs. Hudson. I let it all slide. And it just got harder and harder to pick up the phone somehow."  
John sighed and looked at the woman who had been so much more than a landlady -- or a housekeeper -- to him and to Sherlock.  
"Look, Mrs. Hudson, being here, being with you, at first, it was too much of him," John said, wondering if he was making any sense at all. "It was like watching my life go on without me, like it was supposed to go on without me, and I shouldn't be here at all. I felt like if I was going to survive, I had to live a different life. You didn't need to be around me when I was like that. I wasn't any good to anybody."  
"But John, it's been so long, and I've been so worried about you," she said. "Sherlock said you're doing well, you have your own surgery now. I wish you would have told me. He said your girlfriend told him all about it last night.”  
“My girlfriend? Mary?” John said. “No. That was our first date. Probably our last, too, since I walked out and left her with Sherlock.”  
“Sherlock told me about that,” Mrs. Hudson said, with the air of someone who isn’t sure she should be sharing something. “He was so upset that you wouldn’t listen to him. Why wouldn’t you, John? He was so pleased to be going out to find you last night, almost excited, like when you first moved in and you boys ran around so much together. Then when he came back he looked so sad, like he’d lost his best friend.”  
“Like I lost my best friend two years ago?” John said, inhaling deeply through his nose.. “At least all I did was leave a restaurant without paying the bill. I didn’t make him watch me fall, make him see me bloody on the pavement, make him feel for a pulse and not find one.”  
“You’re angry,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Still?”  
“You know, Mrs. Hudson, I thought I was past being angry at him for killing himself, for not giving me the chance to help him, for making me a witness to it,” John said. “I was accepting the fact that no one knows exactly what someone else is going through, and maybe there was nothing I could have done or he could have done to make his life bearable and he thought he had no choice. But then he came back, and I found out that’s not what he did at all. He played a trick on me, Mrs. Hudson, played me and you and everyone else he left in the dark for fools. He let us mourn and grieve, made me remake my life, and he can’t come back and expect me to applaud him for cleverness.”  
“But it’s not like that,” Mrs. Hudson said. “He said he was going to see you this morning. Didn’t he explain why he did it? He had to, to keep us safe. He said that if we didn’t believe it, then neither would the people who were supposed to kill us.”  
John leaned heavily back in his chair. Mrs. Hudson, apparently, had reacted the way Sherlock had hoped he would react as well. For someone who wasn’t really Sherlock’s mother, she had unlimited wells of forgiveness for him.  
“The thing is, Mrs. Hudson, the assassins might have believed him,” John said. “But I don’t. That’s the thing about lying. People stop believing you.”  
John studied his teacup for a moment before looking at Mrs. Hudson, seeing tears in her eyes.  
“Look,” he said, trying to forestall any weeping, “that’s not really what I came to talk to you about. Did Sherlock tell you about this Moran character?”  
“The one trying to get to Sherlock through you? Yes, he did,” Mrs Hudson said. “I wish you would come back. The two of you were such a good team.”  
“I thought we were too, Mrs. Hudson,” John said. “But that’s not why I’m here. If you were threatened two years ago, you might be again. I want to know you’ll be careful. Look out for people you don’t know, don’t go out on your own if you can help it, that kind of thing. I have to go to the shops myself; is there anything I can get you today?”  
“Sherlock said Moran is looking for you, not me,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Besides, I know Mycroft has cameras around the building. Sherlock will do his best to look out for me, although I rather think that means he is going to try to find Moran before he can do anything rather than sitting at home. He never was the sitting down type. I haven’t seen him since last night. He was already out when I went to take him a cup of tea this morning.”  
John wondered, not for the first time, what it was about Sherlock that made people want to take care of him. God knew John had tried, pushing him to eat and sleep and learn how to get along with people. He didn’t look like any of that had stuck while he’d been gone. He was thinner than John had ever seen him when he appeared last night, and looked as though he was about to drop from exhaustion. He hadn’t looked much better this morning.  
He shook his head, trying to get control of his wandering thoughts. “Even so, Mrs. Hudson, is there anything at all I can get for you?”  
As John stood and straightened his jacket, he heard the street door open and close. That was quickly followed by the opening of the door into 221A and Sherlock’s voice.  
“Mrs. Hudson?” he called. “It’s me. Are you all right? I see you’ve had a visit -- ”  
Sherlock came round the doorframe from the sitting room, seeing John standing near the table, his half-full teacup in front of him.  
“John? I didn’t expect you to be here,” Sherlock said. “Mrs. Hudson told me that you don’t -- didn’t -- visit.”  
“I just came to make sure she was all right, what with Moran and you coming back and all,” John said. “And I was going to the shops today so I thought I’d ask if I could bring her anything. You will remind her to be careful? You don’t know Moran is going to go after me, and she could be vulnerable.”  
Sherlock scoffed.  
“Mrs. Hudson? She’s a tough old bird --” he started.  
“Sherlock!” Mrs Hudson and John both interjected at the same time.  
“I mean she is stronger than people give her credit for,” Sherlock said. “And she’s not the target, anyway.”  
“How do you know that?” John asked.  
“Because Moran knows that I tracked you down in a restaurant, disguised myself as a waiter and interrupted your date just to see you as soon as I arrived in London,” Sherlock said. “By the way, Mary was much less insipid that the women you used to go about with. Seeing her again soon?”  
“Not your business, Sherlock. Mrs. Hudson, I’ll see you. I promise it won’t be two years this time.” John shot Sherlock a parting glare and let himself out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [Ariane_DeVere](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/64080.html) for the transcript of TEH!
> 
> FInd me on Tumblr at [JustLookFrightened](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/justlookfrightened)


	3. A Walk in the Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No, Greg, not lying. I want no part of this. I don’t know -- maybe Sherlock and I can be friends again sometime. But not now.”  
> “You really mean that?” Greg said. “I mean, you were so torn up when he died, I thought you’d be happy to have him back.”  
> “I’m happy he’s alive, I won’t say I’m not,” John said. “But he never did die. He fooled me, Greg, and you and all of us, and he let me grieve. I went to his grave. I spoke to him, like he was there. And it was all a big joke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you like this!  
> Not beta'd or Britpicked, so tell me if you see any glaring errors. If you volunteer to beta, I'll send you cookies!  
> Thanks to those who commented or left kudos!

Chapter 3  
After a tomato and cheddar sandwich at the Pret around the corner, John took stock of what he had accomplished that day. Laundry, yes. Shopping? Not yet. Visit Mrs. Hudson and make her cry, yes. See Sherlock twice in three hours, yes. Hopefully those would be the last times he talked to the man for a while, at least until he figured out how to see Sherlock without feeling like his heart rate was going to shoot through the roof. John wasn’t even sure what the reaction was about. Anger? Anxiety caused by remembering seeing his best friend plummeting to his death? Panic? Joy that he was alive after all? Anticipation that a life that he thought was gone for good might be back within his reach?  
John stopped himself right there. Sherlock might be back, but that didn’t mean Sherlock-and-John were back. Sherlock might not have killed himself jumping off a hospital, but the whatever-Sherlock-and-John-had hadn’t survived. John wasn’t sure, given Sherlock’s deception, that the partnership he thought they’d had ever existed at all. To think that for two years, John had asked himself if they could have been more, if telling Sherlock what he wanted would have changed Sherlock’s decision. But Sherlock had been clear that first night at Angelo’s, and even clearer after the fiasco with Irene Adler. Sherlock didn’t do sentiment. Well. Clearly.  
It was only just past midday, and John hadn’t seen anything on the news or the papers about Sherlock being back. Sherlock said Moran knew, but there was nothing to say Lestrade knew. Sherlock didn’t do sentiment, but Moran might think he did. If Moriarty thought Lestrade was important enough for Sherlock to die for, Moran might think he was important enough for Sherlock to come back for.  
John decided that the shopping could wait a bit longer and pulled out his phone.  
Greg, it turned out, was at work and couldn’t leave, but said John was welcome to come by, especially if he brought real coffee with him.  
When John walked into Greg’s office carrying two cardboard cups, Greg looked up with a wide smile on his face.  
“I’d ask to what do I owe the honor, but I think I know,” Greg grinned. “Do you believe that bastard?”  
“Bastard is right,” John said. “Look, Greg, I don’t know what Sherlock’s told you, but you might be in danger.”  
“He really hasn’t told me anything,” Greg said. “He just found me in the car park when I was leaving last night, made his dramatic entrance. He told me he’d seen you briefly, that he was back at Baker Street, and that he was going to try to explain everything to you this morning. So how’d he do it?”  
“I don’t know how he did it, Greg, and I really don’t care,” John said. “What I wanted to tell you was why he said he did it, and why you need to watch yourself. He said that he had to jump because if he didn’t -- and if you and I and Mrs. Hudson didn’t believe he died -- Moriarty had snipers that would kill us.”  
“Really? I never knew he cared that much,” Lestrade said, still jovial.  
“Whether he did or not, there’s still someone after him, and Sherlock came back because he thinks this guy -- someone called Moran -- was going to try to hurt me or kidnap me or something, thinking that would draw him out if he was still alive,” John said.  
“Sounds like a decent plan,” Lestrade said. “Just the idea of it worked, and they didn’t even have to grab you.”  
“Well, Sherlock thinks it was just me that was under threat, but I’m concerned about you and Mrs. Hudson as well,” John said. “You want to watch your back, yeah?”  
“Of course, John,” Lestrade said. “And I’m sure Mycroft’s people are all over this, but you know if you need anything, you can call me, right? I don’t know that the Met will do much -- Sherlock’s been cleared, but you know how it is -- but I’ll do whatever I can to help you and Sherlock catch this guy.”  
“I’m not going after him, Greg,” John said. “I’m a GP. My best friend died two years ago, and I moved on. Sherlock didn’t care enough to get in touch with me for two years; why would anyone think he’d do anything to save me? And why would I go back to him?”  
“So that’s the way you’re playing it?” Greg said. “I’ve got to hand it to you. Sherlock always said you were pants at lying, but that’s pretty good.”  
“No, Greg, not lying. I want no part of this. I don’t know -- maybe Sherlock and I can be friends again sometime. But not now.”  
“You really mean that?” Greg said. “I mean, you were so torn up when he died, I thought you’d be happy to have him back.”  
“I’m happy he’s alive, I won’t say I’m not,” John said. “But he never did die. He fooled me, Greg, and you and all of us, and he let me grieve. I went to his grave. I spoke to him, like he was there. And it was all a big joke.”  
“It wasn’t a joke, John.”  
Greg’s head swivelled and John whipped around at the sound of Sherlock’s voice from the door.  
“It was deadly serious,” Sherlock continued, entering the room to stand in front of Lestrade’s desk. “He told me he was going to burn the heart out of me. He would have killed you, and I couldn’t live with your blood on my hands. I know you visited my grave. I saw you. I wanted to tell you the truth, but if I could see you grieving, then so could everyone else.”  
“You couldn’t live with my blood on your hands, so you decided that I could live with your blood on mine?” John heard his own voice rising, as though it came from someone else. “I was there outside Bart’s. I took your arm and checked your pulse. And I had your blood on my hands. It was the last time I ever touched you.”  
With that, John edged around Sherlock and left, trying not to break into a run. He skipped the lifts because he didn’t want to be trapped anywhere, heading down the stairs and out into afternoon sun. He thrust his hands in his pockets, using them to draw his coat more tightly around him. He headed toward St. James Park, hoping that a walk would give him a chance to calm down.  
The last time he’d touched Sherlock, he was gripping his arm, frantically trying to find a pulse in his wrist. There had been no beat of blood beneath his fingers. John knew he was distraught and disoriented by the time he reached Sherlock’s side, but he was a doctor. He knew how to find a pulse. The only conclusion was that Sherlock had planned for him to approach, planned to stop the circulation in his arm long enough for John to be convinced that his heart had stopped beating.  
John had not been allowed to really examine Sherlock’s body, he recalled. John had been tended to by passers-by, people who appeared to be medical personnel, consoling him and pulling him back so that Sherlock could be taken away on a gurney. So he could be declared dead by Molly Hooper, who signed the death certificate. Who most certainly would have had to examine the body, if there was one. Who therefore knew that whatever had really happened, Sherlock had not died by throwing himself from the roof.  
John felt a little sick.  
He’d always thought of Molly as a nice girl, sweet, non-threatening. Not someone who could keep that kind of a secret for years. Apparently she could, but Sherlock didn’t trust John to do the same.  
John took a seat on a bench, going over every interaction he’d had with Molly since Sherlock … left? That was a good word for it. There were surprisingly few; John had no reason to haunt the morgue at Bart’s without Sherlock going to cadge the odd organ or limb, and neither Molly nor John had made much of an effort to keep in touch. John had stopped socializing with more or less everybody who knew Sherlock, but now he wondered if Molly had other reasons for not calling him. Did she feel guilty? Afraid she’d let something slip?  
It didn’t matter, John thought, because their lack of regular contact over the past two years showed that the only thing they ever had in common was Sherlock, and John didn’t intend to organise his life around his former flatmate any longer.  
John stood and considered his next move. It would have to be going back to Scotland Yard, he thought. When he left, he’d neglected to bring his clean laundry with him, and he didn’t fancy leaving his sheets and his clean pants in Lestrade’s office.  
He pulled out his phone to text Lestrade to make sure Sherlock was gone before he returned and saw two new messages, both from Mary.  
The first read: “Just checking to see how you’re doing, John. That was quite a shock last night.”  
The next, sent about 20 minutes later, said, “I don’t have any plans for tonight. Do you want to get together and talk about it? Maybe it will help you figure things out. :-).”  
Maybe spending some time with Mary would help, John thought. She didn’t remind him of Sherlock; he hadn’t even met her until a year and a half after his death. She was funny and kind and a good listener, and John thought she was pretty.  
“Sounds good,” John texted back. “I’m a bit tired, though. Take-away? I can bring food and come to yours.”  
His phone chirped not a minute later; Mary would be out doing her own errands, and it would be just as easy for her to come to his, she said. If he was tired, that might be better. She could meet him around 7, she said.  
John responded in the affirmative, and said he’d order from the Italian place down the street and pick it up before she arrived, then strode back towards New Scotland Yard. Maybe this could work, he thought. He could be a doctor, and he could find a girlfriend, yes, maybe Mary, and he could see Sherlock sometimes and maybe even help with cases. But he could not, would not, lose himself in the man again.  
John had just made the turn onto Victoria Street when a familiar black sedan pulled up and idled at the edge of the pavement. The back window lowered, and before anyone inside could start speaking, John protested.  
“Bloody hell, Anthea, or whatever your name really is,” he said. “I’m meant to be being careful, so you can tell Mycroft that kidnapping me right now is so not on. Tell him to piss off.”  
“That message has been received,” came a posh voice from inside the car.  
Shit. Not Anthea. It was Mycroft himself.  
“I wanted to make sure you knew it was safe to accept a ride. I also have the items you left in Detective Inspector Lestrade’s office, and I am prepared to give you transport to your flat, so you need not drag your newly washed clothing and linens through the filth on the tube.”  
John considered for a moment and decided it would be childish to insist on public transport when such a posh means of getting from one place to another was ready and willing.  
“Lovely to see you again, Dr. Watson,” Mycroft murmured as John sank into the leather seat.  
“Oh come off it, Mycroft,” John said. “There’re cameras all over the city. I’m guessing you’ve watched me since I left my flat this morning. Mrs. Hudson told me you have cameras trained on Baker Street.”  
“Yes, and on your flat as well,” Mycroft said. “Sherlock is persuaded that Moran will make an attempt on your life before trying to kill him. I don’t necessarily agree, but Sherlock said that is what Moriarty would have done, and he does have an affinity with Moriarty’s way of thinking.”  
“An affinity with Moriarty … that’s one way to put it,” John said. “Really, there’s no reason for me to be of interest to anyone. Just take me home and let me drop off my laundry so I can go get the shopping and the take-away.”  
“Take-away? Is Sherlock joining you?” Mycroft asked. John thought he heard a hopeful tone in his voice. Odd; Mycroft had never had an opinion on Sherlock and John spending time together at all.  
“No, Mycroft. Mary -- the woman I was with last night -- is coming over. I’m not saying Sherlock and I will never be friends again, but I’m gonna need some time to wrap my mind around this.”  
John was silent for a moment, before he realized that the car had pulled up outside a Tesco. “Well, I can’t say it’s been pleasant, Mycroft --” John started.  
“Stay here, John. My driver will get your groceries.”  
“But how does he know what I need?  
“Your list is on your phone, isn’t it?” Mycroft asked, one brow arched.  
“Fine,” John said, accepting that the contents of his phone would not be private for the foreseeable future. “Tell him to add a bottle of wine to the list, yeah? Something that would go well with Italian food?”  
“Really, John, we’re at Tesco.”  
“Which is where some of us buy wine,” John said.  
After another few minutes of awkward silence, John cleared his throat and said, “I guess I owe you an apology. For what I said the night before Sherlock … the night before. You didn’t sell him out, did you? This was a plan you two came up with together.”  
“No apology necessary, John,” Mycroft said. “The plan was ours, but he did want to tell you. I persuaded him that it would be best not to. Frankly, I didn’t think anyone would be able to stop you going after him, and that would have told Moriarty’s people that all was not as it seemed. It would have jeopardized the mission and put Sherlock -- and yes, you and the others -- in danger. So I made you believe I had made a terrible mistake that allowed this to happen.”  
Mycroft steepled his fingers in front of his chin, so like Sherlock, John thought.  
“You see, John, I’m being honest with you now, the way Sherlock said we should have been honest then,” Mycroft said. “And I honestly think that you should move back in with Sherlock, at least until we’ve dealt with Moran.”  
John was quiet as the driver returned, storing his groceries in the boot and putting the car in gear.  
As they approached his flat, he shook his head. “No, Mycroft. You made all the decisions two years ago -- you and Sherlock -- and it ended that part of my life. That’s over. You don’t get to be in charge here. Besides, I don’t really blame you. I didn’t expect you to trust me then, and I don’t now,” John said, his voice starting to go a little hoarse. “But Sherlock …”  
Here, John had to stop and control his breathing.  
“Sherlock was my best friend. He should have known this would hurt me, and he should have known he could trust me.”  
The car glided into a stop and John got out without saying goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me at JustLookFrightened on Tumblr!


	4. Something About Mary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’ve definitely moved on,” John said with a smile, taking a large mouthful of the wine. “I think maybe, maybe once I get used to the idea, he and I can be friends, but I’ve got a different life now.”  
> “Good,” Mary said. “Because I like you.”  
> A pleasantly drowsy feeling was stealing through John’s mind, and he felt his posture relax in the kitchen chair. If he didn’t know better, he’d say he was a bit tipsy, but he’d only had the one glass of wine.  
> “I like you too, Mary,” John said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you like this!  
> Not beta'd or Britpicked, so tell me if you see any glaring errors. If you volunteer to beta, I'll send you cookies!  
> Thanks to those who commented or left kudos!

Chapter 4  
By the time John had dumped his duffel bag clean laundry on the steps of his building, the driver had unloaded his groceries from the boot. He placed them next to John’s laundry, and it was all John could do to not reach into his pocket for a tip, even though he knew the driver likely was also a bodyguard, armed, and earning well more than John.  
John settled for a nod as he reached in his pocket for his keys, a friendly “Cheers, mate,” to the man who looked a bit like every other driver Mycroft had used. Did the man order them from central casting?  
The car glided away, its engine barely audible, as John opened the door and contemplated the stairs. If he brought everything up now, he would just have to trundle back down to get the takeaway, and if he wanted a chance to put the shopping and his laundry away before Mary arrived, he couldn’t afford to waste time.  
Nothing in the grocery sacks was likely to spoil in the half-hour or so it would take pick up dinner, and he had been able to maintain reasonably cordial relations with his neighbors in the building, so John decided to just leave everything inside the outer door.  
He pulled out his mobile -- no further texts from Mary -- and called the restaurant, ordering his favourite, eggplant parmesan, plus an order of spag bol, garlic bread and cannoli. That way, Mary could choose the dish she wanted, or they could split both entrees. If they both had the garlic bread, that wouldn’t be an issue.  
Right, John, he thought to himself. Are you a bigger fool for ordering garlicky food when you might get a first kiss, or for thinking about a first kiss when you left Mary at the restaurant last night?  
Take-away was easier when it was for him and Sherlock, he reflected. He ordered what he wanted, with extra portions, knowing that Sherlock would rarely take a dish of his own but would often eat from John’s. After a while, he started to know what Sherlock preferred, and steered his orders that way, especially on nights when Sherlock hadn’t been eating over the previous days.  
Whether the food would leave his breath in a kissable state had never been a concern, John thought. And it wasn’t like he had never thought about kissing Sherlock. He had, from the first time they ate together, or really, the first time Sherlock had watched John eat, and he had never stopped. He did like to think he’d successfully kept those thoughts from the detective. Sherlock seemed to take all of John’s declarations of “Brilliant” and “Amazing” as his due, and not wonder whether there was anything but admiration of his intellect behind them.  
Still, by the time Sherlock had left (yes, that was the word, and it was getting easier to think that way), the two of them lived so much in each other’s pockets that personal space was a concept that had gone out the window. John knew the way Sherlock smelled after a shower, after running through the streets of Brixton, after being fished out of the Thames, and after eating almost any kind of food that was available in London. He’d imagined he way he would smell after sex, the tangs of sweat and semen blending with the Sherlock-scent of wool and tea and something citrus that was in his shower gel and shampoo.  
John turned into the cafe he’d ordered from, taking a seat at the bar and trying to marshal his thoughts back into some semblance of order before his body betrayed him. The restaurant was a bit like Angelo’s, if a little smaller and missing the almost aggressive bonhomie of Angelo’s proprietor. The owner here was friendly enough, and the food was good, reasonably priced and plentiful.  
“Just a glass of water, Tony,” John told the owner’s nephew, who was working behind the bar. The young man had been to see John in the surgery a couple of times. “You sure, Doc? I can give you a glass of wine, on the house.”  
John sipped his water while he waited for his order. When he’d lived with Sherlock, there had been a long list of restaurants where they had eaten for free, in return for favors. John had come to suspect that Sherlock selected at least some of his cases based on the potential for future gratitude. Now, after more than a year of serving as a full-time physician, John had developed his own group of people who appreciated what he had done for them. It was nowhere near as large or as useful as Sherlock’s networks, but it was a reminder that he had his own worth.  
When the food was ready, John said goodbye to Tony, leaving a tip for him with the empty water glass. He made his way back up the street and tried to focus on Mary. She was the opposite of Sherlock in every way: blonde to his brunet; short and curvy to his tall and angular; kind and open and honest to his …  
Well. Perhaps John needed an evening in Mary’s company.  
John found his bags exactly as he had left them. He swung the duffel full of clean laundry over his shoulder, shifted the bags of take-away into one hand and hefted the sacks of shopping into the other before stumping up the stairs. Good thing it was early; the racket he was making wouldn’t disturb the neighbors.  
He used his key to get into the flat and then froze, setting down the bags as quietly as possible. A pricking on the back of his neck told him he wasn’t alone, and he tried to take in whatever details had alerted him.  
He noticed Mary’s red coat slung over the back of a chair at his kitchen table at the same time she emerged from the bedroom.  
“John?” she was saying. “I saw the bed was stripped and I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”  
“Oh,” John took a step back.  
“Laundry day,” he indicated his duffel with a shrug in its direction. “Um, Mary? How did you get in?”  
Mary stepped further out of the bedroom, a warm smile on her face as she looked him in the eye.  
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I got here a little bit early, and your neighbor downstairs was just coming in, and I told him I was coming to see you, so he let me through the door. I knocked when I got up here, and the door was actually a bit ajar, so it swung open a bit, so I came in and found it looking like you’d moved out. I was a bit worried, to be honest. You’re not angry with me, are you, John?”  
John looked at her and blinked.  
After a moment, he shook his head.  
“No, not angry. Just a bit concerned,” he said. “You found the door open? Stay here while I have a look round, make sure no one broke in while I was gone. It’s probably just that I forgot to lock the door when I left -- I was a bit upset -- but you never know, yeah?”  
He lifted the laundry bag and shifted it into the bedroom, taking a moment to make sure that his laptop was still there. The telly was still in the living room, and there really wasn’t much else of value in the flat. Unless … He stepped onto the bottom of the wardrobe to get enough height to see all the way to the back of the top shelf.  
John breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the cardboard box that had his medals and identity discs and Sherlock’s things was still there. He looked a bit closer, noticing a smudge in the dust in front of the box. Dust, Sherlock always said, was eloquent. The box had been moved.  
John stepped down and grabbed the clean towels from his duffel bag, heading for the loo. Should he tell Mary that there had been someone in the flat? He’d like to have a look inside the box, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her that someone might be targeting him. It wouldn’t do to have that get around the surgery, especially if he was trying to keep his distance from Sherlock. He also didn’t want to share the contents of the box with her. With anyone, really.  
Could it have been Mary looking in the box? Sometimes people were nosy when they found themselves alone in someone’s flat, but he rather thought it was more the thing to snoop through medicine cabinets. Sherlock, of course, wouldn’t limit himself to cabinets or wardrobes or the contents of his hard drive. Sherlock was never happy until he had prised out every thought from his brain.  
“Just going to put the towels in the bathroom,” John said, passing through the sitting room. “And maybe freshen up a bit.”  
The cabinet over the bathroom sink looked untouched, but then, anyone could open it and see everything there was to see without touching anything: a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, mid-range razor with disposable blades, can of shaving cream, bottle of paracetamol. The Xanax and Zoloft were on a high shelf in a kitchen cabinet, out of the reach of children should one ever set foot in the flat, and where he didn’t have to see them every morning. He’d weaned himself off the antidepressants six months ago, and he only took the anxiety meds when he needed them. Like maybe tonight, if he could find a way to do it without Mary seeing. But then, he had the bottle of wine Mycroft’s driver bought, and she would find it a bit odd if he didn’t partake. Best to let the alcohol take the edge off, then.  
John emerged from the bathroom after giving his hands and face a quick wash, knowing she would have heard the water run so she wouldn’t ask what was taking him so long.  
By the time he came out, Mary had moved the groceries and take-away to the kitchen table and was removing containers of food from the bags. The wine stood in the middle of the table, but the rest of the groceries were still in the sacks.  
“If you give me some plates, I’ll dish up while you put those away,” she said.  
So maybe she hadn’t been in his cabinets, John thought.  
“Sure,” he said, handing her two plates and two glasses. “Silverware and napkins are in those drawers.”  
He stowed milk and some greens in the refrigerator (with no body parts or mold cultures, thank you very much), put unopened jam and cereal in the cupboard and pulled a candle and matches from another drawer.  
“I’ve been advised that this will make it more romantic,” John said.  
Mary grinned, and a pink tinge touched her cheeks.  
“It doesn’t have to be romantic, John,” she said. “You seemed so shocked last night when Sherlock -- can I call him Sherlock? -- came into the restaurant. I didn’t want you to spend the evening alone brooding.”  
“No, not that,” John said. “Actually, I’ve seen several friends today.”  
Not quite a lie -- he did count Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade as friends, and as he got used to the idea of Sherlock being alive, he hoped that he could one day be friends with him again. But not now. Not until John got his bloody feelings under control again.  
“Did you see Sherlock?” Mary asked, eyes all eager. “Are you going to see him again? You can tell me -- were you two just flatmates, or was there more to it?”  
She stopped at the look on his face.  
“It’s all right if there was,” she said. “It’s just, at the restaurant, he seemed to think you’d be happy to see him, and the way he talked about you after you left … he wanted to know everything about you, said he wanted to make sure you were all right. Said you were the best and wisest man he knew. A bit intense, really.”  
John focused on breathing calmly. Sherlock said that? To his face, Sherlock called him an idiot, or, if he was feeling generous, said he was marginally above average intelligence.  
“Um, pass the cheese?” John asked, reaching out for the small plastic container of parmesan to sprinkle on his spaghetti.  
“Well, er,” he twirled some noodles around his fork. “He said that? Really?”  
John took a bite and swallowed, then cut a small piece of the eggplant. “No, I wouldn’t say we were ‘just friends’ because we were very close, closer than most I think. But we were never romantically involved, even though a lot of people thought we were,” John said. “I, uh, may have had a tiny crush on him once, but he didn’t do relationships, not like that, and, anyway, that all changed after he died. After I thought he died.”  
John thought he’d navigated that rather well. Maybe calling his infatuation a “tiny crush” minimized it, but it had changed after Sherlock was gone and John realized he wasn’t just a bit attracted to him, he was head over heels for him. Without Sherlock there to bring color into the world, John had felt he was living no more than half a life, even after, to most eyes, he’d started to pull himself together. He couldn’t let himself fall so deeply again, he thought, because Sherlock didn’t do relationships, and if he found out how John felt, he’d either use it to manipulate him, as he did to Molly, or be uncomfortable and leave. Frankly, John wasn’t sure which would be worse.  
“Do you think it could be different this time?” Mary asked. “I know we aren’t really dating, John, and it’s not like you have any responsibility to me. What do you think?”  
“No, I’ve definitely moved on,” John said with a smile, taking a large mouthful of the wine. “I think maybe, maybe once I get used to the idea, he and I can be friends, but I’ve got a different life now.”  
“Good,” Mary said. “Because I like you.”  
A pleasantly drowsy feeling was stealing through John’s mind, and he felt his posture relax in the kitchen chair. If he didn’t know better, he’d say he was a bit tipsy, but he’d only had the one glass of wine.  
“I like you too, Mary,” John said, looking surprised at how difficult it was to form the words properly. “I think you’re lovely.”  
“Are you sleepy, John?” Mary asked. “Don’t go to sleep yet. Sherlock’s on his way.”  
“Sh’lock’s coming here?” John slurred. “Interrupting dinner again? Prat.”  
“Well,” Mary said. “He was so awfully worried about you.”


	5. Meeting Moran

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “None of that,” she said. “Hands on the table. You haven’t got your mobile anyway. Once I’ve shot you, I’ll use it to send a suicide note to your brother. That’s what people do, isn’t it? Leave a note? This time, Sherlock, there won’t be any magic tricks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you like this!  
> Not beta'd or Britpicked, so tell me if you see any glaring errors.  
> Thanks to those who commented or left kudos!

Chapter 5  
John slumped a bit deeper in his chair.  
“But how do you know he’s coming? Did he call you? I don’t even think I have his phone number. His old one was cut off ages ago,” John said, mumbling a bit. “He didn’t tell me his new one.”  
“Oh, he gave it to me,” Mary said brightly. “Last night. At the restaurant. He was so worried, especially when I told him about how lonely you were, about how your drinking was affecting your work. You really can’t come into the surgery so hung over your hands are shaking, you know. Or is that psychological?”  
Mary sat across of from him, a cheerful smile looking all wrong on her face as John’s eyelids threatened to close.  
“He knew you weren’t really limping again -- he saw that -- but I told him how your leg pains you after a long day on your feet,” Mary said, “and about how everyone felt sorry for you for months, but now the rest of the staff is concerned that one of your mistakes will cause a real problem for all of us.”  
“Thass not true,” John protested, the heavy sleepiness in his voice cutting into its effectiveness. “I don’ come in hung over. I’m very careful.”  
“So before I left -- and make no mistake, I left him with the bill -- I asked if he wouldn’t mind giving me a way to get in touch, in case I needed to reach him for any reason,” Mary said, standing and removing her plate and glass from the table to the sink. “I’ll just need to wash these and put them away before he arrives, and I think there’s only a few minutes left now.”  
“Wha? Why?” John was struggling to remain upright.  
“I have to wash my plate and glass so Sherlock thinks you were eating alone, John,” Mary said, speaking slowly and enunciating carefully, as though she were explaining something to a toddler. Not a bright toddler, either.  
John used his forearms to push his plate out of the way and then settled his head on them, face toward the table. Mary gave him a long look before turning to the dishes in the sink and continuing her monologue.  
“You see, when you were in the bedroom I texted Sherlock and told him I was worried about you, and I thought someone should check on you. I mentioned your drinking to him last night, and today I mentioned that I knew you took benzodiazapines for anxiety,” she went on. “It would only take a small lapse in judgment to do yourself serious harm. Even better, given how you care about what people think, anything that happened could be written off as an accident.  
“But you and I and Sherlock know better, don’t we, John? You are a careful doctor, and you don’t make mistakes with medication. So Sherlock knows that if you decided to mix alparzolam with alcohol, it was on purpose. And what could have driven you to that not 24 hours after he reappeared? Oh, this will be precious.”  
John snuffled as he settled his head more firmly into the nest of his arms.  
“Anyway, I told him I didn’t know how you’d react to his presence, so I would come and check on you,” she said. “If all was well I’d wave him off, but if he didn’t hear from me, to come in a half-hour. That should be right about now. Then I crushed some of your pills, mixed them with the parmesan cheese and poured you a nice big glass of wine.”  
Mary took her seat across from John and observed him through a minute or two of silence, until footsteps pounded up the stairs.  
“John?” Sherlock’s voice rang out from the stairwell. “John? Are you ok?”  
Mary stood quickly, and in a higher, more breathless voice, called out, “In here, Sherlock. He’s in here. I can’t wake him.”  
Sherlock tried the door to the flat but found it locked. He was just about to launch himself at it when Mary pulled it open.  
“In the kitchen,” she said. “He’s fallen asleep and I can’t wake him.”  
“Have you called 999?” Sherlock asked.  
“No,” Mary said, grabbing Sherlock’s arm and pulling him into the kitchen. “He was awake when I got here, eating dinner, though he seemed a bit drunk. Then we were talking and he just sort of fell asleep. I was trying to wake him when I heard you.”  
“John! Wake up!” Sherlock’s voice was urgent as the long fingers of one hand skimmed through John’s hair and stretched around his neck to check his pulse. The other hand was already in his pocket, reaching for his mobile to call for an ambulance. “John! You can’t do this. You told Lestrade we could be friends again someday. I need you, John. Wake up. We’ve got to get you help.”  
Sherlock’s breathing was ragged and his voice cracked as pleaded with John, until he heard a metallic snick.  
He looked up and saw that Mary was holding a semi-automatic pistol pointed at his forehead, her hands encased in nitrile gloves. His hands fell to his sides. He’d heard was a round being chambered, and her finger was on the trigger.  
“You’re not calling 999,” she said, reaching with her left hand for his mobile. “Let me explain how this is going to go. You are going to sit here and watch John as his breathing slows and he drifts into a coma. At that point, you will be so distraught that your faked suicide led your best friend to commit real suicide that you choose to join him in the hereafter, a la Romeo and Juliet.”  
“What?” Sherlock looked confused. “Romeo and Juliet? He’s very ill. He needs an ambulance. If you won’t let me call, you call. Then we can leave. I’ll go with you. Just get him some help.”  
“That’s not the way it’s going to work, Sherlock,” Mary said. Now her voice had a teasing quality. “Jim promised to burn the heart out of you. Now, I can’t promise that we’ll sit here and watch John die, as much as I would like to. Watching him take his last breaths -- that would destroy you. I might not even have to kill you myself after that. But I think it would take too long. I don’t know how long your dear brother will give you in here before he decides to investigate. I know he’s watching you. But we will sit here long enough for you to consider what your friendship did to John, and what he might be like if he ever wakes up. Once that sinks in, you might actually welcome the bullet I’m about to put in your brain.”  
Sherlock turned from her to look at John, still slumped over the table, his breaths coming slow and loud in the quiet room.  
“What did you do to him?” Sherlock asked.  
“I didn’t do anything,” Mary said. “I watched him eat Italian food and wash it down with a hearty glass of red wine. The drugs they find in his system will be chemically identical to the anti-anxiety meds in the cabinet next to the sink. Identical, because they came out of that package. Everyone knows that John nearly killed himself after you took your swan dive off St. Bart’s. Did you know I was watching him when you fell? Did you know he fell in the street, trying to get to you, that he didn’t work for months, that he barely spoke? And after the display in the restaurant last night, and what John likely told the friends he saw today, it will be easy to add to the impression that your return pushed him over the edge, so to speak.”  
“You’re serious?” Sherlock said. “You want John to die? Why? What has he ever done but suffer at my hands?”  
“Well, then, consider this putting John out of his misery,” Mary said. “You need him. That’s enough reason to get him out of the way. But you’re not going to be alive to need him much longer, so why do you care what happens to him? I thought you were a sociopath.”  
“Yes, well, so did I,” Sherlock said, slumping back in his chair.  
“You know, I thought for a moment last night that you might be Moran. Moran, Morstan, quite a coincidence,” he said. “And in perfect position to get to know John. But John seemed to like you, and John needed something good in his life. When I talked to you about John, you seemed to like him. I was hoping that if I wasn’t wrong, you would just use him to get close to me, that you wouldn’t hurt him. Because I couldn’t hurt him anymore.”  
“What made you think me using him wouldn’t hurt him?” Mary said. “The man wears his heart on his sleeve. He walks around asking to be hurt. That’s why he was so angry with you; he thought you used him. Anyway, we’ve only got a little while.”  
“This isn’t going to work, you know,” Sherlock said, standing. “It’s not that easy to make a murder look like a suicide, if the investigators have any brains at all.”  
“Yes, but you and I both know they probably won’t,” Mary said. “After all, everyone knows just how unstable you are, even if Detective Inspector Lestrade and your brother did clear your name. You already committed suicide once. Do you think it will be hard for people to believe you did it twice? It’s not as though Lestrade will be allowed to head the investigation -- he clearly has a conflict of interest -- and he’s the best of a bad lot, as you once were fond of pointing out. I don’t think Dr. Hooper will be doing the post-mortem either, not after the suicide of a man she certified was dead two years ago.”  
Mary stopped for a moment, as if considering, and then went on.  
“In fact,” she said, “I might owe Dr. Hooper a visit when we’re through here, to show her what she gets for working against Jim, after he watched ‘Glee’ with her and everything. Especially if you decide not to cooperate. But if you do, I’ll tell you what. I’ll call 999 as soon as you’re dead, and they might find John before it’s too late. So if you want John to have any chance at all, and if you value Molly Hooper’s life, you’ll sit back down.”  
Sherlock sat. He started to reach into the pocket where he kept his mobile, but stopped when Mary interrupted.  
“None of that,” she said. “Hands on the table. You haven’t got your mobile anyway. Once I’ve shot you, I’ll use it to send a suicide note to your brother. That’s what people do, isn’t it? Leave a note? This time, Sherlock, there won’t be any magic tricks.”  
Mary rounded the table so she was directly next to Sherlock.  
“Not in the forehead if we can avoid it,” she said. “That’s a bit too Hercule Poirot for you.”  
She laughed at Sherlock’s lost look.  
“Another one who valued his ‘little grey cells,’ as he would say, over his ‘transport,’ as you would say,” she said. “The temple is risky; people sometimes move and it makes for a messy corpse. Through the mouth it is, then. You’ve seen this done. Turn your chair towards me.”  
Sherlock didn’t move, so Mary reached for his chin.  
“Really, Sherlock, didn’t you die to save your friends before?” she said. “What’s one more time, between friends?”  
Then the room exploded with noise and movement.  
By the time Sherlock was able to look around him, Mary was on the floor, a deep red pool spreading around her as more blood seeped from a hole in her shoulder, her eyelids fluttering closed.  
John was on his feet, his gun still trained on the woman. John’s eyes were blazing, and his face was hard and set. A second or two later, he relaxed his posture, reset the safety and thrust the Sig Sauer into the back of his jeans.  
“For Chrissake, Sherlock, you weren’t just going to sit there and let her shoot you, were you?” John said, anger mixing with fear and exhaustion in his voice. “How many bloody times do I have to shoot someone that you could bloody well stop from killing you all by yourself? Do you really have a death wish?”  
“No,” Sherlock said slowly, his eyes never leaving John’s. “I knew you would save me. I could tell when I checked your pulse that you weren’t drugged, but I didn’t know what you were playing at. I knew you likely had your gun -- even if I hadn’t noted it earlier today, I could see the bulge under your jumper when I leaned over you. That was quite a chance you were taking, thinking she wouldn’t walk behind you.”  
“Yeah, well, my back was to the wall, and I couldn’t think of anything else when I realized what she was trying to do,” John said. He stepped over Mary and saw her gun lying several feet away; there was a hole in the baseboard under the table. It must have gone off when it hit the floor, John thought. This landlord, unlike Mrs. Hudson, really would add the bill for damage to the rent.  
“How long until Mycroft’s people get here?” John asked.  
“Mycroft’s people? Why would they come? If you don’t want her to actually die, John, you should be calling 999," Sherlock said before stopping to consisder a moment. "Though I think Mycroft would quite like to talk to her, I really don’t think I want to hear any more of what she has to say.”  
“Me either,” John said. “She went on a bit before you came in, too. Made me out to be a pathetic fool. I don’t know what you must have thought of me after talking to her last night.”  
He pulled out his phone and called for ambulance and then texted Mycroft in hopes the British Government could do whatever needed to be done to keep him out of jail for shooting Mary. He had been saving Sherlock, after all.  
“The average response time for an ambulance in London is eight minutes,” Sherlock said. “Perhaps we should take our leave before it arrives? Mycroft can find us in Baker Street.”  
“I’m not moving back just because I shot someone in my flat, Sherlock,” John said, shaking his head and looking at the mess on the kitchen floor. “If Mary was Moran, then the threat is gone and you have no reason to want me there anyway.”  
Sherlock looked away and grimaced a bit before rearranging his features into a suitably friendly expression.  
“Just for tonight then,” he said. “You can tell me how you worked out what was going on. I’m sure it was brilliant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [Ariane_DeVere](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/64080.html) for the transcript of The Reichenbach Fall!


	6. I needed you to want me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "On the roof, I understood my choices to be these: Tell you the truth, and watch you die, which would destroy me, or deceive you, and let you live. I judged it the better course to have you alive, even though I knew you would suffer, even though I knew I might not live to see you again, even though I knew you might hate me if I did. Because only by that course could I have the hope of reclaiming your friendship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you like this!  
> Not beta'd or Britpicked, so tell me if you see any glaring errors.  
> Thanks to those who commented or left kudos!

Chapter 6  
John felt like he was having deja vu when the cab pulled up in Baker Street and Sherlock swirled his coat and alit on the doorstep while John was still struggling to dig bills out of his wallet and climb out of the car.  
By the time John reached the door, Sherlock was halfway up the stairs.  
Yes, deja vu, and not of the good times, John thought. This was not at all like when he and Sherlock stood shoulder to shoulder in the foyer, struggling to catch their breath as they giggled at the ridiculousness of what they’d just done. It was more like the weeks leading up to Sherlock’s fall, when John would struggle to keep up as he felt Sherlock drawing further and further away from him. Even when they had been in the flat together, Sherlock’s attention was on Moriarty and his games. John had made tea, offered toast and sandwiches, urged his flatmate to go to sleep every day or two, asked questions about the case. Sometimes he got hum or a nod of acknowledgement; more often, he might have been talking to a statue for all the response he got. His offerings of food and drink stayed where he set them, although sometimes he would find them half-eaten.  
Through it all, John had tried to stay close, to offer support, to understand that this was what Sherlock felt he had to do to catch Moriarty. He had tried to understand, but he had felt shut out nonetheless. More than that, really, he felt neglected. In the cemetery in Grimpen, Sherlock had said John was his only friend. As Sherlock grew more and more fascinated with Moriarty, John thought Sherlock might have regretted ever saying that, might have wished he’d left it with what he’d said at the inn the night before, that he didn’t have friends.  
John was still mulling over what happened before Sherlock jumped as he trudged up the stairs, using the handrail to take some of the weight off his bad leg. Mary had been right about that, he thought. It did pain him after a long day.  
John had gone through the events of the night before Sherlock jumped over and over again after Sherlock died -- after Sherlock left. They solved the kidnapping and saved the children, then the girl screamed when Sherlock walked into the interview room. Anyone who was there and saw Sherlock’s reaction would have to know that he was as surprised as everyone else; Sherlock generally got on with children. Just like him, they had no filter between brain and mouth.  
He’d left John standing on the pavement outside New Scotland Yard; the next time John saw him, Sherlock was standing over the body of one of the assassins who had moved into their street. John never did learn quite what happened there.  
Then in the flat, Sherlock had tried to bait him, to make John admit that he was falling for Moriarty’s lies, that he was beginning to doubt Sherlock’s genius.  
Never that, John had thought. He was beginning to doubt his own sanity, because he suspected that what he was falling for was his mad flatmate, while said flatmate appeared to forget his existence now that an out-and-out madman was on the scene.   
“Nobody could fake being such an annoying dick _all_ the time,” John had joked, pushing back against the way Sherlock had been treating him. John didn’t think Sherlock had understood the subtext.  
Then later, after John punched the chief superintendent in the nose, they had run through the streets handcuffed together and it had been better than good. They found Moriarty himself, and John had begged Sherlock to explain, not because he doubted Sherlock, but because he knew Sherlock was the only one who could make sense of what was going on.  
All Sherlock said that was the Moriarty was selling a big lie, and sent John away again. Later, at Bart’s, John walked out on his own, calling Sherlock a “machine” for his lack of concern over Mrs. Hudson. It didn’t take long for John to figure out that Sherlock had set the whole thing up to send him away again. It wasn’t long, but long enough for Sherlock to get to the top of the hospital and set up his phone call to John. His “note.”  
Mary had used that phrase with Sherlock tonight, John thought as he hung his jacket on the hook and turned to look at the flat. It was only marginally tidier than when Sherlock had left. He heard the sound of the kettle being filled and went to lean on the doorjamb leading into the kitchen.  
“Mary heard what you said to me that day at Bart’s,” John started.  
“You heard that, of course,” Sherlock said. “You did a good job of playing drugged.”  
“Yes, Sherlock, I heard that,” John said. “The point is, how did Mary know what you said in a phone conversation between you and me?”  
“Well, they did find a wireless microphone on Moriarty’s body,” Sherlock said. “I assume she heard what I said through that. She was watching you that day, John, and if I hadn’t jumped, she would have shot you.”  
“So she was Moran, then? The person you were looking for?” John asked.  
“Yes, that’s what the evidence suggests, at least. She was definitely working for Moriarty that day at Bart’s, and she put herself in a position to get close to you to find out if I was alive,” Sherlock said. “When you appeared to believe I was really dead, she started the rumour that Moran was going to harm you, because she knew that if that didn’t draw me back, I really did die.”  
“But why did you come back, Sherlock?” John asked.   
“I told you, I heard you were in danger,” Sherlock said. “I couldn’t have you hurt.”  
“Couldn’t have me hurt? Sherlock, do you think anything would hurt me more than watching you die?” John asked. “I was a mess for months. I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t work. I didn’t want to be alive any more. And you say you couldn’t have me hurt?”  
“John, I had no idea you would be so affected --” Sherlock started.  
“Well, then, what did you think would happen, Sherlock?” John asked. “Did you think I would just stay here, keep working the odd shift, make endless cups of tea and leave them around the flat for nobody to drink, just like before?”  
“I suppose. I never really gave much thought to what you’d do if I wasn’t here.”  
“But then you came back, and found I’d moved on, and you expected me to drop everything and move back with you and be your dogsbody again?” John asked. “Like I was a suitcase left on a shelf in the lost luggage room?”  
“No, John, no. I did this all for you,” Sherlock said. “So you would be safe.”  
“Maybe I didn’t want to be safe,” John said. “I wanted to be with you. But you never gave me that choice.”  
John took the mug Sherlock offered and turned back into the sitting room, looking down at the worn chair that he had claimed as his the first time he visited the flat. The last time he sat there, he stared at Sherlock’s empty chair and offered God -- the deity he only believed in when his own life was on the line -- anything he had to give if he only could have Sherlock back.  
“If you’d asked me, before last night, what I would do to have you come back, I would have given anything,” John said without looking up. “Anything, up to and including my own life. The only reason I didn’t follow you after you died is that I didn’t want to give Moriarty, or whatever was left of his organization, the satisfaction of knowing he got both of us.  
“Because he took away the best and the wisest man man I’ve ever known, a man I never believed told me a lie,” John said. “But it turned out I was wrong. You’ve been lying to me for two years, letting me believe you were dead, watching me grieve, treating me like a prop in this fucked up play of yours. I knew you didn’t love me, not like I loved you. But I thought you cared, a little. I thought you valued my help, even if all I ever was was a conductor of light. I thought you fucking trusted me to have your back. It turns out I was just another tool for you to manipulate and make use of.”  
Sherlock had followed John into the sitting room and stood in front of his own chair, facing John’s back and bowed shoulders. John couldn’t see the way his words hit Sherlock, like they had barbed ends that stuck in his flesh, leaving his face ashen and pained.  
But John could hear the tremor in Sherlock’s voice when he responded, his body already half turned away in case John should try to look at him.  
“No, John, it was never like that. You were the most important, and I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to keep going without you,” Sherlock said. “On the roof, I understood my choices to be these: Tell you the truth, and watch you die, which would destroy me, or deceive you, and let you live. I judged it the better course to have you alive, even though I knew you would suffer, even though I knew I might not live to see you again, even though I knew you might hate me if I did. Because only by that course could I have the hope of reclaiming your friendship.”  
John had turned and was watching Sherlock in the mirror over the fireplace. Sherlock looked up and met his eyes in the mirror.  
“Even so,” Sherlock said. “If I’d known how it would hurt you, I don’t know if I could have gone through with it. But I won’t apologize for making the right decision.”  
“That’s just it, Sherlock,” John said, looking away again. “You made the decision, and you made the decision to cut me out of the loop. You did that long before you were up on the roof. You did that as soon as the trial ended, maybe before. You wanted it to come down to you and him, to see who was the cleverest, and you didn’t want me to be part of it. Would letting me help have offended your sense of fair play? Or just ruined the aesthetics of the thing? Or is it just the way you are, risking your life to prove you’re clever?”  
“It wasn’t that I wanted to risk my life,” Sherlock said. “It was that I didn’t want to risk yours, or at least not put you at any more risk that I already had, just by caring for you.”  
John finally turned towards him and sat in the chair, the mug in both hands with his elbows resting on his knees.  
“And you saw how that worked out, yeah? With a woman who I worked with every day coming over and pretending to be attracted to me, trying to kill me with the contents of my own kitchen? Keeping me safe is not something that’s in your power, Sherlock,” John said. “I accepted that I wouldn’t be safe the day I followed you to a crime scene. Hell, I accepted that when I joined the army and went to Afghanistan. I might get hurt, might even get killed, but I’ll do my best to stay alive and I’ll do a damned better job if I know what the hell is going on!”  
John inhaled deeply through his nose, let the breath out and said, “Sorry for shouting. What I meant to say is, I can take care of myself, at least as well as you can.”  
“I did tell you about Moran,” Sherlock pointed out.  
“But you didn’t tell me that you thought it might be Mary,” John countered.  
“How did you know what was going on with Moran tonight?” Sherlock asked.  
“With Mary? I didn’t, at first,” John said. “I’m sure I missed dozens of things you would have noticed. It was odd that she seemed to like you, I guess.” John smirked.  
“Really, I knew she lied about getting into my flat,” he went on. “She said my downstairs neighbor let her through the security door. But Mr. Walker downstairs is a bit paranoid -- he never would have let in someone he didn’t know. I remember locking the door to the flat this morning, so if it was open when she arrived, someone else broke in earlier. I think most people would have texted me to see why the door was open -- if she’d done that, I’d have told her to wait outside while I called the police. But she went right in, and was snooping through my things. She could easily have seen my meds and the wine while I was checking things out, and I don’t know if she’s a real nurse or not, but she’s been working at the surgery and I know she knows not to combine alcohol and Xanax. So after that, I just made sure that everything I ate or drank came from the same containers she used. When I asked for cheese, she gave me a new container, so I sprinkled it on part of my plate and then ate from the other side.”  
John shrugged. “I figured the best thing to do would be to figure out what she wanted. I figured she wanted to hurt me. I didn’t think she’d go after you with a gun while I slept on the table.”  
“So you saved my life again,” Sherlock said. “Amazing.”  
John gave a wry smile. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”  
“But I didn’t do anything amazing,” Sherlock said. “Not tonight, and not while I was gone. I did a lot of things, took apart Moriarty’s networks, but without you there, it was dull. Nothing was amazing. John, the one thing I learned was that I needed you. You told Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade that one day we could be friends again. Please, tell me you meant that.”  
“I don’t know, Sherlock,” John said. “I needed you too. But I needed you to want me there. Because I needed to love you. And you didn’t want that.”


	7. I Think I Love You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re still you. Brilliant and gorgeous, all long legs and curly hair and that mouth and eyes that see everything. When you look at me, I feel like I’m the most important thing in the world, and all I want to do is make you keep looking at me, and make you feel the same way.  
> “But you don’t feel the same way at all, do you? So for my own sanity, I can’t stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you like this!  
> Not beta'd or Britpicked, so tell me if you see any glaring errors.  
> Thanks to those who commented or left kudos!

John settled back in his chair, suddenly exhausted. Maybe he hadn’t avoided the Xanax in his food quite as successfully as he’d thought.  
“All I wanted when you were gone was to love you,” he said. “My biggest regret was that I’d never told you that I did love you, that you died never knowing that you were the person I lived for.”  
Sherlock perched on the back of his chair, regarding John over the rim of his mug. John could see the strain on his features, although he thought most other people would have missed it. He wasn’t sure what Sherlock was thinking, but that, oddly enough, felt familiar enough to be vaguely comforting.  
After a moment of silence that stretched passed awkward, Sherlock stood again and pulled out his phone, looked at the screen briefly and tucked it back in his pocket.  
“Well then,” he said. “Apparently, your powers of observation developed during our earlier association. Good thinking on the Moran situation. You’ll be happy to know that she’ll likely live, but also that she’ll never be a free woman again. There will be no need for further statements from us. Once again, I am in your debt.”  
“I don’t know about that,” John said. “Sure, I saved you too, but no matter what she told you, I wouldn’t have given tuppence for my life after she was done with you, so shooting her was self-preservation as well.”  
John took a sip of his now-lukewarm tea. “If you’ve heard from Mycroft, does that mean the cleaners are done? Can I go back to my flat now?”  
“Back to your flat?” Sherlock asked. “But I thought you were staying here. Even if the blood is gone, it will smell of bleach for days.”  
“And that’s the worst smell I’ve ever had to put up with in a flat?” John asked. “Look, Sherlock, I’m glad you’re alive. I’m glad we’re both alive, if it comes to that. But it seems to me that you heard too much from Mary, and from me, tonight for us to go back the way we were. Even before, you knew I was attracted to you -- don’t bother denying it, I knew it would have been pointless trying to keep that from you -- and now you know I was in love with you. I can’t stay here and just be your friend and see you pity me. I honestly don’t think you’d try to use it to make me do what you want, but I’m not sure you could help it. Or maybe I’m not sure I could help myself from doing what you want in hopes that making you happy would make you like me more. I need to go back to my flat, Sherlock.”  
Sherlock stopped pacing and stood directly before John, looking down at him.  
“You said you were in love with me, past tense,” Sherlock said. “But you are afraid I’ll take advantage of you -- no, not sexually -- because of your feelings. That implies that you still do love me.”  
“God help me, Sherlock, I think I do,” John said, the thought surfacing through the fog in his brain that it might not be the best idea to admit that. “You’re still you. Brilliant and gorgeous, all long legs and curly hair and that mouth and eyes that see everything. When you look at me, I feel like I’m the most important thing in the world, and all I want to do is make you keep looking at me, and make you feel the same way.  
“But you don’t feel the same way at all, do you? So for my own sanity, I can’t stay.”  
John set his hands on the arm of his chair and pushed himself to standing, swaying a bit when he reached his feet. Sherlock hadn’t stepped back, so John had to crane his neck to look him in the face, and Sherlock cradled John’s elbows with his hands to steady him.  
“What makes you think I don’t feel that way?” Sherlock said, his voice quiet and strained. “I just told you that I needed you.”  
“Yeah,” John said. “But you need lots of things. Food and water especially. But you don’t do sentiment, Sherlock. Chemical defect, remember? Caring is a mistake? I used to think, sometimes, that you were changing your mind about that. Especially after you died. I thought maybe you cared so much -- about the work, about what people thought, about I don’t know what -- that you couldn’t live with it. But it turns out I was wrong about that. You just used me caring to fool me, so I could be a better pawn.”  
“You’re wrong, John,” Sherlock said. “You were never a pawn. You were the king, and if I’d let Moriarty get to you the game would have been over for me. I didn’t want to live in a world without you in it.”  
“So you made me live in a world without you?”  
“Maybe not my best thinking, I grant you. But what I found when I was away was that I didn’t just need to know you were alive somewhere in the world. I needed you with me. I missed you terribly, and I made mistakes, and there were times I didn’t think I was going to make it home. It would have been so different if you were there,” Sherlock permitted himself a small smile. "You really couldn’t have blogged about any of it, but I used to try to think of what you would have called some of our adventures, had you been there, at least until it got bad. But then I was glad you weren’t there, because we could both have died, and maybe it’s selfish of me, but I did not want to see that.”  
“Sherlock -- “ John started, leaning more heavily into what was turning into an embrace.  
“Let me finish, John,” Sherlock said, his arms now around the smaller man’s waist. “I know I made you see that, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I put you through, and I never thought I would say that to anyone. John, I’ve never really loved anyone before, not outside of my family, and I’ve never felt or thought this way about anyone, but I think I love you. And I know I want you to love me.”  
Sherlock stopped, waiting to hear what John would say to that, hoping that the way John’s face was buried in his shoulder was a good sign. All he got was a “Sh’lock” and a sigh, and more of John’s weight against him, making it so he was almost -- no, he was -- holding John upright.  
“John!” Panic was creeping back into his voice. “Are you all right?”  
“Sleepy,” John murmured, turning his face towards Sherlock and forcing one eye open. “Think I got more Xanax than I thought. Don’ worry. Just sleepy.”  
John snuggled back into Sherlock’s shoulder, before turning his face up once again, opening both eyes this time.  
“You just said you loved me,” he said. “Take me to bed.”

***************

John emerged from Sherlock’s bedroom late the following morning, wrapped in Sherlock’s blue dressing gown and scrubbing his fingers through his hair. He squinted at the dust motes that floated in the sunlight coming through the windows, then focused on the tapping sound coming from the vicinity of his chair.  
Mycroft. In a bloody three-piece suit. On Sunday morning.  
“Mycroft,” John said, giving a short nod. He wasn’t sure what else to say to the British Government when he had just emerged from said British Government’s brother's bedroom, even if all he had done in there was sleep, and develop a ghastly headache. Or maybe that was the effect of having Mycroft in the house.  
“John,” Mycroft nodded back, and looked like he was fighting a smile. He approved then, John thought, and didn’t mind John knowing, but didn’t want to discuss it. Good enough. He proceeded towards the kitchen.  
“There’s water in the kettle and the paracetamol is on the table,” Sherlock said.  
“Right,” John said. “Tea, Mycroft?”  
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Mycroft said. “I must be off. I was just telling Sherlock that Ms. Moran should cause you no further trouble. We did find a bit of alprazolam in your wine glass as well as on your plate -- Sherlock said you ended up with a higher dose than expected. Still, it seems no harm done.”  
Mycroft took himself and his umbrella down the stairs, and John proceeded to the kitchen, flicking the kettle on and swallowing two paracetamol tablets with water from the tap. Sherlock stood in the doorway behind him and watched as John pulled two mugs from the shelf.   
“John, did you mean what you said last night?” he asked.  
“You mean the ‘take me to bed’ part?” John grinned as he spooned sugar into one of the mugs and handed it to Sherlock.  
“No, you idiot. I mean about how you love me, and how you think that means you can’t stay,” Sherlock remained in the doorway, standing very still. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to move to the sitting room. Somehow, if John sat in his chair and said he was leaving, that would make it real. If he was standing in the kitchen, there would be room to maneuver.  
“I do love you, Sherlock,” John said, setting his hips against the worktop and looking into his mug,. “And I did before you left too, although I don’t know if I would have admitted it then. I had to face a lot of things about myself while you were gone, including that I probably would not have survived if I hadn’t met you when I did. So whenever you think I saved your life, remember you saved mine first. But now it’s my turn. Did you mean what you said?”  
“Of course I did,” Sherlock nearly snapped. “I wasn’t the one who was drugged. I meant every word. But now you’re going to go anyway.”  
“Now who’s being the idiot?” John set his mug down and stepped closer to Sherlock, reaching one had up to his face. “I didn’t answer that part of the question. If you really feel that way about me -- if you want me to love you, and if you want to love me back -- then I’ll stay. I can’t move all the way back in right away, mind you. I do have a flat to deal with. And I have a job that I can’t just walk away from. But I’ll stay today, and I’ll come back tomorrow night, and we can go from there.”  
“Go where?” Sherlock asked, a little breathless at the feeling of John’s thumb on his jaw and his fingers in the hair behind his ear. The embrace last night had been warm and comforting; now John was looking at him with intent.  
“Let’s start here,” John said, rising onto his toes and bringing his lips to Sherlock’s, a light pressure that faded after a couple of second had passed. “That okay?”  
Sherlock opened his eyes -- when had he closed them? -- and nodded, reaching for John as John took the mug from his hand and set it on the kitchen table. The John took his outstretched hand and pulled him to the sofa, sitting beside Sherlock with one knee up on the cushion, their fingers still twined together.  
“Can I kiss you again?” John asked.  
Instead of answering, Sherlock surged forward, and their mouths met with more force. John rubbed at the nape of his neck, slowing him down, and licked gently at the seam between Sherlock’s lips, making Sherlock’s breath hitch when John’s tongue touched his. He let go of John’s hand in favor of using both his hands to hold John’s head, his fingers carding through the short hair and his thumbs memorizing the contours of his face.   
John rose onto his knee and half-straddled Sherlock, making the angle easier for both of them, and then let Sherlock set the pace, exploring his mouth. When their lips finally broke apart so they could breath, John drifted a series of kisses starting at the corner of Sherlock’s mouth, along the side of his face and ending where his neck met his jaw, just under his ear.  
“You have no idea how many times I’ve thought of kissing you here,” John said, moving down his neck. “Or here. Or here.”  
“John,” Sherlock said, looking like a debauched angel with his swollen lips and pale skin. “Take me to bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me at [JustLookFrightened](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/justlookfrightened) on Tumblr!


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